Stretto
by safelystowed
Summary: DeBryn's morning does not go well when he discovers one of his medical students laid out for autopsy in his own morgue, his real patient nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, Morse has to stay with the Thursdays while his flat undergoes repairs. Case-fic. Set after Sway before Neverland, no S3 spoilers. Drinks, drugs & death but nothing graphic.


**_Thursday 1_ _st_ _December, 1966_**

Max DeBryn signed off his name at the bottom of the medical certificate with relish, snapping shut his fountain pen and slipping the file neatly into its manila folder. Pushing back his chair, he stood up and stretched with a satisfying click of his shoulder blades. The sunlight trickling through the single, small window of his office at the morgue was still bright with early morning freshness making the usually dim room almost cheerful, and the street outside was filled with sounds of rush hour buses and footsteps of those turning up to their morning shifts at the Radcliffe.

Taking off his lab coat, DeBryn arranged it carefully on the back of his chair and pulled on his jacket. Reaching into his lab coat pocket, he grabbed his keys and took one last glance around his office to ensure everything was in order before picking up his briefcase and walking outside. The morgue corridors were empty and calm. Walking past the cold storage, DeBryn poked his head into the post-mortem room where his assistant William Joffrey was unpacking a tray of freshly cleaned instruments. Joffrey was a tallish man with a receding hairline, his remaining locks trimmed to a severe half centimetre. He glanced up and waved to DeBryn, eagle-like face stretching into a grin.

"You off then Doc?"

"Yes Joffrey, I leave the fort in your hands." DeBryn did up his coat buttons. "I've finished the last of the certificates, and it's all on my desk ready to be filed. It feels strange to be leaving almost as soon as I've come in, but plenty of time to catch my 10 o'clock train."

Joffrey walked with DeBryn down to the back entrance of the morgue, pushing open one of the double doors which emerged into the hospital yard, beyond which were a couple of parked ambulances and the main street. A draught of frosty air swept between them. "Best of luck with your conference then. I'm sure your paper will be a smash hit."

"Thank you." DeBryn smiled at his assistant. "I'm sure my London colleagues will appreciate our work on the novel ways in which final meals can inform forensic medicine. Now, the weekend should be quiet. Just a couple of routine post-mortems scheduled that will be handled by the doctors here. Any deaths of the murderous sort, and Dr Kemp is on call. I'll see you Monday morning." 

* * *

The shrill whistle of the kettle brought Morse to his feet, leaving Monica buttering toast at the table as he went to brew tea, rummaging through the cupboard trying to find the jar of jam that he knew he had stashed away somewhere.

"Another double shift today?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Yes, Clara doesn't get back till January." Monica licked butter off her finger. "Need me to get a jar from my place?"

"It's alright, found it." Morse slid the jam across the table to her before jiggling the teabags up and down in the pot. Now that the kettle was silent, he was aware of a faint gurgling noise somewhere in his near vicinity. Frowning, he stepped over to inspect the sink, twisting the taps as tightly as they would go.

"I don't mind covering for her." Monica continued as she scooped out a spoonful of jam. "Looking after the old folks is quite different from my normal line of work. It's a nice change of pace, and some extra cash around Christmas is always good."

"Can you hear that?" Morse opened the cupboard beneath the sink. "It's not the pipes here."

Monica listened intently. "Maybe someone left a tap on somewhere."

"Pretty loud for a tap." Attempting to follow the noise, Morse wandered over to his bed, where the gurgling appeared to be loudest. Crouching down he pressed his hand against the carpet. "It's damp! There must be some plumbing issue somewhere. Remind me to speak to the landlord on our way down." Grabbing the pile of records he had next to his bed, he moved them to the relative safety of a shelf before returning to the table, handing Monica a mug of tea in exchange for a plate of toast. "As long as you're not working too hard," he said between mouthfuls, picking up where their conversation had left off. "Supper in town afterwards?"

Monica smiled. "Wouldn't miss it for the world." 

* * *

The sound of pounding footsteps echoed down the panelled floors of the corridor outside Dr Heldridge's room, interrupting his flow of speech. Every head in the class turned as the door swung open and a tousled blonde head came into view.

"Brooks!" Dr Heldridge scowled disapprovingly. Punctuality ranked high in his list of things of great importance to the world, closely followed by neatness of dress and calmness of manner, all of which Tom Brooks was sorely lacking. "That's the third time you've been late to my lecture."

"Sorry Doctor." Somewhat bashfully and out of breath, Tom Brooks slid into the closest seat and flipped open his textbook, frantically scanning the blackboard in anticipation of what he knew was coming.

"I don't suppose you can tell me the current drug regimen for treatment of tuberculosis?" Dr Heldridge raised his ample eyebrows sarcastically. "No? I didn't think so." He turned back to the board, picking up his chalk. "You need to up your game young man. And for God's sake fix your buttons. It boggles the mind how one individual can be so out of order." 

* * *

The smooth, melodious timbre of a cello wafted out of the open window of a college music room. Inside, a well-built brunette played at the strings, repeating a couple of passages of Vivaldi's _Autumn_ until he was satisfied with the quality of his tone. Beside him a slender blonde girl tied a polka dot hairband around her head before picking up a violin bow, tightening its hairs and drawing it across a well-used bar of amber rosin. Across the room, a second girl was standing before a piano, tinkering a light melody on the upper keys with a cherry-coloured viola tucked under her free arm.

The door to the music room opened and a bespectacled young man entered, a violin case slung over his back and pile of sheet music stuffed into his coat pocket. The other members of the quartet laughed as they greeted him and hurried to rearrange the chairs in the room.

They were too preoccupied to hear the raised voice of Tom Brooks arguing with another student, stout, sandy-haired George Young, in the courtyard outside. Neither did any of them see Brooks take off in anger, rubbing a hand over his temples with a sigh and striding past their window without a glance behind him. 

* * *

"Here's those cocaine files you were after Sir." Strange handed a folder to Bright with a nod, who flipped open the front and smiled with contentment at the typed contents.

"A job well done, Thursday," he said, turning to the Inspector who had just arrived at the station following a brief detour to the dentist. "Two arrests and the trade route stopped in its tracks. All done and dusted before Christmas. Division will be pleased."

"Glad to hear it Sir." As Bright returned to his office, Thursday turned to Morse who was sitting at his desk and staring at an empty teacup with some bewilderment. "What's up with you? You're not yourself this morning."

"Hmm?" Morse looked up distractedly. "Oh, nothing really. Just some trouble with flat. You don't happen to know the name of a good plumber, do you?" 

* * *

_****_

_**Monday 5**_ ** _th_** _ **December, 1966**_

"Watch out!" Morse lunged forwards and clamped an old towel against the surge of tepid water that burst with sudden ambition from beneath his stove. "Don't let it get wet!"

Monica leapt onto a chair as a stream of ripples lapped out onto the kitchen floor, licking the edge of the rug. She held the record player that had been entrusted to her high above the fray, her once crisply starched white nurse's apron now limp from the ever-expanding pools of water that had decided to burst upon them that morning from various points of the flat. What had started as suspicious patches of damp over the weekend had culminated in an unexpected torrent of unknown origin, seeping from beneath the stove, the sink and cupboards and seemingly rising from beneath the carpets.

"Where is it all coming from?" she gasped in disbelief, sitting on the edge of the table and keeping her feet firmly on the chair. On the floor below Morse was a right mess, futilely trying to soak up the flood, now about an inch deep, with an already waterlogged towel.

"I think I'd rather not know." Morse stood up cautiously, trickles of the murky water sliding down his pants. Exasperated, he ran his fingers through his hair, immediately regretting the action when he thought of what he might just have introduced to his scalp. Skipping to his linen cupboard and wincing as each footstep sent splatters further throughout the room, he desperately laid more towels on the ground. Evidently they would not staunch the flow for long. "Is your flat alright?"

"Not like this yet, but I've got one damp corner and a dripping pipe. I thought the landlord told you last week he'd gotten it under control."

"Well, that's what he said." Morse scanned the room for anything that might be of value, picking up a few police files from the station that he'd left sprawled on a chair and putting them safely in the middle of the kitchen table. "Evidently, he was _wrong_." 

* * *

Adjusting his tie in front of the mirror, Fred Thursday glanced at the clock on his bedside table. Morse was uncharacteristically late. Joan had already left for work and Win gone for the weekly shop. As if on cue, the telephone rang with a shrill squeal downstairs. Thursday had just put on his jacket when Sam came running up the stairs.

"Just got off the phone with Morse. There's some drama happening at his flat. Tidal wave something or other."

Bemused, Thursday followed Sam downstairs and put on his hat. "I'll make my own way in. Lucky for him there isn't anything important on the cards for today."

"Caught your drug smugglers then?" Sam held open the door for him.

"Oh yes. We're all hoping for a quiet week down at the station. Time to catch up on the paperwork. See you tonight, and mind those dishes are washed before your mother gets home." 

* * *

"Right, are we all accounted for?" DeBryn beamed around at the group of eager-eyed medical students gathered before him, clad in their lab coats and dutifully armed with notebooks and pencils. Still somewhat euphoric from the positive reception with which his work had been met in London, he'd donned his best bow-tie and was looking forward to imparting Oxford's finest medical knowledge to the next generation.

Eyes darted between the students. "Brooks hasn't arrived yet," one of them piped up.

"Indeed? Well I suppose that's hardly unusual. He'll have to make his own way in. Come along now."

Like a mother duck guiding her brood of ducklings, DeBryn walked briskly to the post-mortem room, his students trailing behind him exchanging nudges and whispers. They soon found themselves gathered around the ominously-shaped human form of a black body bag laid out on the mortuary slab. The ceramic flooring amplified every footstep a hundred-fold, drops of clear fluid lingering along the edges of drains placed at strategic points of the floor, and the faint, sickly-citrus scent of formaldehyde teased the air. DeBryn took a minute to slide open the windows, dim sounds from the outside emphasising the tomb-like atmosphere of the room.

"Right." He turned to the students and surveyed the slab, frowning slightly. "Welcome to your first post-mortem! You are fortunate we happened to have one scheduled for this morning just in time for your anatomy class. Hard to timetable these things, as I'm sure you can imagine. Ordinarily before an autopsy the body is removed from the bag and placed in a supine position on the slab beneath a sheet. Unfortunately for you, Joffrey has been detained with a telephone call, but we shall manage."

DeBryn adjusted his glasses and placed one hand on the body bag's central zipper. Slightly tense, the students held their breaths.

"One thing you must remember about medicine," DeBryn paused, picking up the patient file laid out on the adjacent bench and folding it open, passing it to George Young who was standing closest to him. "Is that it's a hands-on job. You must not be afraid to get your hands dirty. More importantly, observation is _vital_. Before touching a single hair you must take some minutes to simply observe the patient, alive or dead. Position, appearance, expression, the use of medical devices, sounds and smells. Miss any of these and it could make the difference between life and death, a killer incarcerated or a killer walking free."

The students nodded intently, scribbling down notes.

"We have here Anthony Halwell, 72, a transfer from Michael Davis hospital on the other side of town. Straightforward case. Cause of death: heart failure. Nothing suspicious or untoward. A post-mortem has been requested to investigate the possibility of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an inheritable heart condition that may crop up in descendants. Before we view the body, what signs are expected in an individual who has succumbed to heart failure?"

A few minutes of instruction followed. DeBryn was a sharp teacher. While his witty phrases never failed to make lessons entertaining, he was what the students called a "roamer". Most roamers would walk around the classroom during lectures, stopping in front of students at random to throw questions at them. No one escaped. Those less prepared lived in perpetual fear. DeBryn was an exception. He never moved from his allocated spot, but his eyes would roam and he wasn't afraid to shoot sarcastic remarks at the varied and implausible answers that he frequently received. Tough as his classes may be, he was a quality teacher and well-liked by the students.

Finally satisfied that his charges had some idea of the case before them and that any major blunders on their behalf would be averted, DeBryn snapped on some rubber gloves, grabbed the bag's zipper and pulled it open smoothly. He pushed open the two halves of the bag, expecting to see the wrinkled face of 72 years old Anthony Halwell.

A collective gasp washed over the group of students as the body's face came into view. With a clatter, the patient file dropped from George Young's hands and sheets of paper scattered across the floor. One student hastily made for the door while two others shakily grabbed the edge of the slab for support. A girl began to scream, her voice breaking the suffocating silence that had fallen over them.

DeBryn was stopped in his tracks, speechless.

Lying before him lay Tom Brooks. Pale as a sheet. Motionless. _Dead_. 

* * *

_Thank you for reading! This is fully planned out and expected to be ~12 chapters in length. I'll try to update regularly :)_


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